Wintertime baby

Okay, so there are quite a few posts in the queue, but given the recent weather in my hometown of Seattle I wanted to take a second and brag about the first measurable snow in Luxembourg since I moved here:



This scene happened a few weeks ago, and was the start of maybe 3 weeks where the temperatures never got above freezing, yet these 5 inches of snow lasted only 1 night and we never had any more ‘significant’ snow the rest of the time. I think at this point I am the anti-snow man.

Have fun in your winter wonderland Seattle…..

Fall in Luxembourg

Well I guess it is a little late to start posting about the fall in Luxembourg, seeing as we are well into winter...but since I have not posted much of anything recently, something is better than nothing. Right? Right?

Anyway, there is nothing too special to say here, or else I probably would have posted this sooner. But before the weather turned cold, Secil and I took one of our rare trips to somewhere in Luxembourg that is not Luxembourg city nor just a road to someplace else.

I present you Echternach:




It is a cool little town, about a 30 minute drive away. Like everyplace in Lux it was clean and well taken care of. But mainly it was just very peaceful, picturesque, and a reminder of how amazing some of these little towns are.

We showed up during some sort of small festival that involved drinking beer and eating sausage, which luckily for me I happen to love and which for some reason happen all the time in Lux. And while you can't quite tell from these pictures, we did see a 'Tex-Mex' restaurant that I am definitely heading back there to try. Seriously, I am still looking for some good Mexican food here, and unfortunately the available options are limited both in number and quality.

But the other reason to make this post is that I wanted to show the new member of my family, my German baby Angelika:

Okay, she does not actually have a name yet (as nothing has felt quite right). But after finally letting go of Roxy this summer back in Seattle, and having my heart broken by my French Opel station wagon, my 2 Ford Focus's, and my 1 series BMW lease cars all taken back from me in my 2 years here in Lux, it is nice to finally have my own car again.

See I told you there wasn't much to this post. Ahhhh, but there will be more soon.

Cheers!

Back from the dead!

It has been 3 months since my last blog post, and I will admit it took 2 people asking me if my blog was in fact ‘dead’ to get me off my ass and posting again. So for all of you fans out there, I apologise for my lateness and I am in fact back in business.

So, what has happened the last few months since I posted (at least travel wise)? Well in fact most of you know the main thing….we made a summer trek back to Seattle. Woot woot!

But before we got there, we made a quick stop in New York city:

What a great time, we were only there for a few days, but we did so much....

took a boat tour to see the Statute of Liberty of course,

we went to the 'Top of the Rock' and got a great view of the city,

walked around Central Park,

Secil had pancakes for the first time (you know, just a really thick crepe),

we saw some great art,

saw Times Square at night,

and tons of other stuff that tourists do (except for taking a carriage ride, I had no desire to do that one).

After getting nice and acclimated to America, we hopped on over to Seattle where we were joined by friends and family for the official engagement celebration spectacular!

So much joy!
And although I think I did a good job of proposing the first time, I did forget one thing....the ring (it is there, really trust me).

Our trip back to Seattle was more than just this party though, we continued Secil's American sports indoctrination that started with a Seahawks game at Christmas, with a trip to Safeco to see the M's.

Really I was mostly excited to hang out in the beer garden, but Secil and I both neglected to bring our I.D.'s, and thus we were relegated to the kiddie corner. Oh well maybe next time.
But in the middle of our visit we took a detour and headed with the family down to the real heart of America. Oh yeah, Vegas baby Vegas!

I had not been to my home away from home away from home for a few years, but it all came back to me pretty quick. First we all rented a cabana and spent an entire day hanging by the pool:

Plus Secil learned to gamble (shhh, don't tell anyone), and she wondered off by herself and in 10 minutes turned $20 into $80 at the blackjack tables before calling her gambling career quits and retiring to a life a luxury and champagne:

Now, of course what is amazing about Vegas is that it felt like we were still back in Europe and we even got to visit the Eiffel Tower again....

and also relive our recent trip to New York,

I mean where else in the world can you do all that, and order a 3 foot long frosty drink (not pictured)? I really love Vegas.

Eventually we did have to come back to Seattle, and we managed to catch up with all the friends we could. We even found just enough time (and barely enough weather) to enjoy appetizers and drinks on the water with mom and dad:

But after a few days of hanging out, shopping, and living it up Seattle-style, we had to head back to Luxembourg....however, my American summer was not over yet.

After not visiting New York during the first 30.5 years of my life, I got to go back to the Big Apple for work only 18 days after returning home from our trip. I was only there for a few days and I did have to work, but there was something special about this quick trip....who should be able to join me for one night but my Mom and my good friend Big Al and his mom Cindy, who I had not seen in a few years:

We enjoyed a great dinner in little Italy and explored the city for a few hours, and were even able to run into Detective Mike Logan a.k.a. Mr. Big a.k.a. Chris Noth coming back from a run in Central Park. Yes I know, I am a lucky guy, and now I can die in peace.

Alright, so that was it for my American summer adventure. It was so great to see so many of you and to again see Seattle in the sun (seeing it only in late December gets old quick). We can't wait to come back again. I am like 95% sure it will happen.

Cheers!

Playing some catch-up

Although I will be heading back to my home country in just a matter of days, I figured I might as well put a little update of my last 3 months since that little Rome trip.

So, my first stop was in late April when I accompanied the Luxembourg Gaelic Football Club to Amsterdam for a Gaelic football tournament. Gaelic football is like a combination of soccer and football (the American kind of course), and I had intentions of playing with the 2nd team but my perpetually injured self and my lack of cleats to play in relegated me to team photographer. That's right, my athletic career has been reduced to photography.

Tt was actually quite a bit a fun to play the photographer, but unfortunately the good guys (in red) from Lux lost to the bad guys (in yellow) from Den Haag in the championship. Luckily there were places in Amsterdam that allowed everyone to drown their sorrows that night (and don't worry, Lux got their revenge in the next tournament and is on pace to repeat as the European champions).

Next up was a trip that came on the spur of the moment weekend getaway to Edinburgh. We lucked out with the weather, and although we did get a little rain, we were able to see the castle:

This was a very cool castle for sure, sitting right in the middle of the city:

We did all the Scottish stuff, from drinking whiskey to listening to bag pipes, and made a stop in tourist shop that specialised in Scottish clan memorabilia. It was all I could do to keep Secil from buying everything that said Mackay on it. Anyway, this did lead to one of my most disappointing moments so far in Europe...the Clan Mackay postcard I sent myself in Lux never arrived. The shock! The horror! The first postcard I have sent on my travels that did not make it to me, although I guess that ensures I will just have to go back and do it again.

Anyway, while the castle was great, I found what is now my favorite museum in Europe (well, one of my favorites at least). First of all it was free. Secondly, it was nearly empty. Thirdly they had great (free) tours and audio guides (I can't emphasise how great free is for all these things). Plus the roof had an amazing view:

But most of all it had a lot of cool stuff and even more importantly there were many 'hands-on' exhibits (that I think were geared to a younger audience):

Good times. Plus, there are Starbuck's in Scotland. Can't go wrong there, just like being in Seattle except no one speaks english.

In early May there was a quick trip to Brussels for my first wedding in Europe. The ceremony was good, judging by the laughter there were some funny things said (yeah, my French is really lacking), and otherwise it was like any other wedding except that afterwards I got to eat the best pommes frites in the world yet again:

At the end of May I made my way to Paris for work for a few days, and Secil joined me for the weekend so we could celebrate her birthday in the city of love and whatnot.

After consulting Rick, we saw a few of the sites that were missed in my first visit:

and best of all we did not have to go to the Eiffel Tower and stand in those lines, but we could still see it: Work then brought me to London for a few days, but sadly work kept me busy and the best part was getting an update via telephone from the US about Tiger's victory in the US Open (as all the tv's were tuned to the European Championship soccer tournament).

Our last big weekend was for the Duke's birthday. It is quite the celebration here in Luxembourg for the Duke (and apparently every worker in Luxembourg has 12 Euro taken from their paychecks in March to pay for the party). The early highlight is a festival-style concert that unfortunately did not rock as much as I did:

And the next night the big fireworks show went off with a bang! Really we only do fireworks once a year in Seattle, but I have seen 5 large scale shows in my near 2 years here and I have to say that the more the better.

Oh, and I also spent a week in Alicante, Spain for work just after the Duke's birthday, but most of my time was spent at the hotel and by the pool which was nice but not too exciting except for being in Spain for their upset victory in the above mentioned European Championship. Don't worry, I still found a way to have a good time but alas I did not have a camera with me. Oh well.

Alright, that is it from me. I can't wait to see everyone and actually get to visit both one of my favorite places (Vegas) and a new destination (New York). This will be fun.

Cheers!

A little more Rome-ing

Okay, sorry for the bad pun and for the delay in giving the full write up of this trip. Although I think I already covered the best part of my recent trip to Rome, of course there were lots of other things I saw and did in one of the world's greatest cities before popping the question.

To kick things off on this 3 day excursion, we did things like seeing the Panthenon,


hang with the Pope at Vatican City and St. Peter's Basilica,


and then take a little night walk through the city and visited Trevi fountain.

I also continued to make friends with Egyptian exhibits (seriously, I think every museum has an ancient Egypt exhibit, and they all make my face do that).


Of course we didn't forget the Colosseum:

and the Forum market ruins,

and little cars,

and big questions.


But we did also find time to sample some vino and enjoy just sitting around it a pretty cool city. It was kind of amazing that it felt so intimate (at least where we were staying), but that at the same time there was so much going on around us. Clearly this will go down as one of the greatest weekends of my life, and right now I couldn't be happier.

Cheers!